{"product_id":"luba-standing-female-figure","title":"Luba Standing Female Figure","description":"\u003cp\u003e Democratic Republic of the Congo, late 19th to early 20th century AD\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e Carved from a rich honey-brown hardwood with a lustrous hand-rubbed patina, depicting a nude woman standing with her hands resting on her abdomen, torso leaning gently forward beneath a high, terraced coiffure with radiating dark-stained lobes framing the face. The oval face is naturalistically modeled with fleshy, slightly parted lips, a straight nose, and almond eyes beneath a smooth brow, while the torso and back are worked with the fine punctate and linear scarification (ntapo) that Luba artists used to mark feminine beauty, fertility, and the body's role as guardian of royal memory patterns clustering at the sternum, radiating from the navel, and descending in a chevron band across the lower back above the buttocks. The carving retains excellent surface integrity throughout, with only light age-consistent handling wear and a warm oxidized patina pooling in the recesses of the coiffure and joints; the figure is presented on a later custom wood mount.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSize:13 in (33 cm) in height; 15.5 in (39.4 cm) on its mount)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eProvenance: from the collection of Hans Petereit, Germany. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLuba carvers reserved this idealized standing female type for prestige and memory objects tied to sacred kingship, and closely related treatments of the elongated torso, four-lobed coiffure, and abdominal scarification can be seen in the Cleveland Museum of Art's Female Bowl-Bearing Figure (2010.454) and in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's Luba figure, both of which use the same scarified belly and elaborate hairstyle to signal rank and the body's power to hold royal spirit\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Art for Eternity","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53920845594938,"sku":"16857","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0775\/5120\/6714\/files\/16857bl.jpg?v=1787006395","url":"https:\/\/howardnowes.com\/products\/luba-standing-female-figure","provider":"Art for Eternity","version":"1.0","type":"link"}